


part-time job & what it entails

by perhapssoon



Category: Splatoon
Genre: Family Dynamics, Gen, POV Second Person, S4 shenanigans, Salmon Run, Team Bonding, mask is so done lmao, s4 shares one (1) collective braincell, theyre all morons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2020-03-09 09:10:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18913906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perhapssoon/pseuds/perhapssoon
Summary: Mask pulls the S4 in for a Salmon Run shift. It goes as well as expected.





	part-time job & what it entails

**Author's Note:**

> this has been sitting in my wips for forever ahahaha...

You have never felt absolutely terrible before in your entire life.

Gathering the S4 and shoving them into a boat to take them to Marooner's Bay is maybe not one of your best ideas, but when have your ideas ever been good? It's not like you don't sit around all day playing Brinecraft.

"C'mon, Mask," Aloha says, staring at the statue of Mr. Grizz on the boat. "This is pretty sketchy."

You just roll your eyes and gesture to the gates of the boat and Aloha sighs and edges past you, muttering, "There aren't any girls here, so what's the point if I can't show off?"

Army looks even more skeptical than Aloha, and his hesitation shows on his face as he stops right before entering the gates. "I hope you know what you are doing," he says to you and for the first time since shoving your team into their uniforms, you feel a bit nervous. Well, more nervous than usual because your anxiety never seemed to go away.

Skull doesn't have a problem with anything, and walks right through the gates without any further questions.

Two seconds in, and you're already regretting it. Salmon Run is to collect eggs, and with the eggs come bonuses at the end of the shift. But your teammates fail to realize it.

Aloha is standing on the bow of the ship, taking dangerous selfies that require him basically hanging off the edge with his phone. He's definitely not paying attention to you, and by default, a swarm of chum that decide to target him, because whoops, you're so stupid you forgot to warn them about the glowflies.

You're cut off by the chum as they switch to their new target, pulling you away from Aloha's life preserver, now bobbing up and down on a glob of green ink. So he's down and, just your luck, the glowflies decide to descend on the least suspecting person possible.

"Sku _uu_ ull!" You try to call his name but he looks up in the opposite direction. He sees the glowflies, though, and snipes through half the wave of chum in his direction. But he's too far away -- practically on the edge of the coast -- and as you run over to him, you only manage to cut off a few salmonoids before the glowflies flicker away again.

You aren't glowing yet, so Army must be the next target. You whirl, looking for any sign of the military inkling, but he's nowhere to be found. The Goldie is here, though, and even if it's a bad idea since you're so far out from the basket, you splat it and take an egg.

Every little bit counts.

On the way back to the basket, you almost trip over Aloha's lifebuoy, and you slam your carbon roller over it in a splatter of orange ink. Aloha respawns, a grin still plastered on his face like nothing happened. "Sorry 'bout that, Mask!"

You hold back a smile, even if he can't see it, and point in the direction of Skull. "Revive him and splat the chu _u_ um."

Aloha mockingly salutes you and in three quick seconds, he's over to where Skull is decidedly bobbing, and blasts the back ends of the swarm of salmonids with ease. You decide that Aloha can probably handle it on his own, and go to find Army.

After turning in the egg, you turn into squid form and slip through the grates, landing in the midst of chum, which you take out quickly, leaving behind a splat bomb as you look for Army.

For some reason, you aren't surprised to see a pile of curry on the ground, and along with a few splatters of ink, your eyes find Army's life preserver.

Oh no.

Within seconds, the glowflies are on you, itchy bugs that clog your vision with bright lights, and if you didn't have your mask on, you would be on the ground having an asthma attack. You bat them away to see a wave of chum bearing on you, and manage to revive Army, who immediately shoots a wave of ink, splatting the first three salmonids.

"Hey Mask!" Aloha appears above you, waving an egg over his head. "We got one of those gold fish things!"

"Salmoni _ii_ ids," you correct him, and he shrugs.

"I'm going to put them in the basket!"

"Hurry then!" Army shouts from in front of you. Without you helping him, his ink tank is dangerously low, and you hurry to splatter a wave of ink in front of you, keeping your roller on the ground as he submerges himself in ink. 

The chum push you backwards onto the lift, and Skull, with his miraculous timing, appears above you, an egg strapped to his back, and snipes the propeller which carries you upwards. You can hear Army frantically painting the sides of the lift and swims up to join you. By this time, your quota is half-met, thanks to Aloha taking down a Goldie, but there are only ten seconds left. 

"Find the Go _o_ oldi _ee_ e!" you shout and your teammates spring into action, leaving you to defend yourself against the waves of chum.

A cry of "This way!" goes up and you maneuver around the stream of salmonids and find Aloha, Army, and Skull all gathered around a clump of gold eggs.

You all take one and hurry back to the basket, dumping them all in right as the timer counts to zero.

"Phew!" Aloha grins at you and you offer him a slight tilt of the head in response. "That was wild."

"Two more roun _nn_ nds," you warn him and his smile grows.

"Yeah, I read the manual. I'm ready." He bounces on the balls of his feet as the sky grows light again.

All previous disinterest in Salmon Run had evaporated from him; you suspect that the crazed look in his eye is due to adrenaline, not actual interest in collecting eggs.

Army looks the same as he always does: collected and grim, but there are faint lines of a smile on his face, and Skull just looks less confused than normal.

Mr. Grizz's voice suddenly crackles in your ear, "There's a bunch of salmonids gathering down at the shore. Group up and take them down."

"Alright!" Aloha whoops in response and he's gone off the bow of the ship, tumbling down to the sand below, and he takes off to the basket, inking the whole way there.

You follow in his ink trail, swimming through it and quickly inking the area around the basket. Army and Skull arrive a few seconds later and start inking towards the line of salmonids on the shore. A Steel Eel comes out of the water and immediately targets Aloha, who's busy handling a bunch of small fry who, despite their quickness, can't seem to hit him.

"Aloha!" Army charges forward, and you expect him to splat the small fry with his N-Zap, but he instead produces a plate of curry out of nowhere and hurls it at Aloha, who reacts in time to jump back as it knocks the small fry into the water, spraying everything with curry.

You resist the urge to facepalm.

For first timers, they're remarkably still more put together than Goggles and that group of other Inklings who, despite their strong abilities, somehow had only one brain cell between them. Still, they are unbelievably stupid, and it's only proven more when Skull walks directly into the backwash of a Flyfish and gets splatted, getting revived only when Aloha recklessly straddles a Scrapper and rides it out to where Skull's life preserver is spinning in slow circles, but as soon as the E-Liter user is revived, Maws erupts from the ground to swallow both of them whole.

You toss a bomb into Maws' gaping abyss of a mouth at the last second before focusing on trying to revive your teammates. Army is being chased by a relentless Steel Eel, and as the bosses increase in numbers, you find yourself slowly becoming overwhelmed. Aloha and Skull are still out of commission and you wave a hand desperately at them to move their life preservers closer. Skull gets the message and heads towards you, sloshing in enemy ink. He bumps into Aloha's preserver on the way to you and the pink Inkling turns himself 360 and immediately slides underneath the Steel Eel to where you're standing.

You revive both of them before a Stinger targets you and splats you.

So now you're stuck bobbing helplessly as you watch your team get cornered around the basket. You’re too far away to properly wiggle yourself between the bosses but--

A Steelhead looms from the water and you get an idea. You can still talk to your teammates through your radio and you have to shout to make yourself heard, hoping no one else is dead. "Aim for the Steelhe _aa_ ad!"

Skull's the one who gets it first, surprisingly, and fires at the Steelhead right as the balloon nears the breaking point. It explodes in a shower of ink, reviving you, and a Drizzler nearly lands on top of you as you splat two Scrappers and a Stinger from behind.

Aloha's the one who shoots at the Ink Storm threatening to rise above them, popping the balloon and taking the Drizzler out in two shots.

"Nice sho _o_ ot," you say rather reluctantly as you move in from the side. Aloha gives you a wink and a grin and two more eggs later, the quota is filled.

The four of you super-jump back to the main area, the basket popping behind you as you move out. You can see the tide coming in and you back up from the edge, flicking your roller over the dark green ink around you. You can see your teammates doing the same without being asked, thankfully avoiding falling in the water without you saying anything.

The swarm of bosses is much more lax than your usual shifts, probably because of these three idiots, and you easily fill the quota within the first couple minutes. The seconds are counting down, and all you four need to do is survive, something that none of you seem capable of because Skull gets splatted by a bunch of relentless Smallfry and Army gets headed into the water by Scrapper, and you are so overwhelmed by chum with no backup that you get splatted as well. Aloha's the only one alive now, and any hopes of ending this wave for good is diminishing with every second. He's practically on the other end of the map, nowhere near the basket or the three bobbing life preservers.

"Aloha _a_ a!" You try to call for him but the grunts and slaps of ink from the chum drown you out and you lead the procession back to the basket to await your last teammate.

Hopefully Aloha won't die.  You can see there are only five seconds left on the clock and exasperation rises inside you. There are chum and bosses exploding in the distance and Aloha suddenly bursts through the wall of green, lobbing a splat bomb behind him as he careens off the edge of the stage and into the water below, cheering loudly, the counter reaching zero long before you hear the splash.

His life preserver surfaces and the spam of  _Booyah! Booyah!_  fill your ears as Mr. Grizz's voice overlaps with the shouts. "That's all of 'em. Let's get you back to the boat."

You all land on the boat, respawning as you hit the deck. Aloha is grinning madly, Skull looks disoriented and confused, and Army looks like he's just been through hell and back. You suppose you probably look the most collected out of all of them now, which is really saying something. As the four of you walk back onto land at the end of your shift to collect your rewards, you realize something. 

That shift was fun. As much as you hated to admit it, that trip to Marooner's Bay was probably one of the best shifts you've ever worked, and within good reason.

So you allow Aloha to jokingly steal your Crust Bucket ticket, you allow Army to ramble on for hours on how to better counter the salmonids, and you allow Skull to randomly wander the tables around the Square because really, there's no harm in it after all.

You've never felt so good in your entire life.


End file.
